The bigger problem is that he seemed to think that it was his right (or obligation) to free other peoples ideas. It is what is known as theft if I choose to free your cattle or sheep or other property. If you come up with an idea should I have the right to publish it and benefit from it without your permission? He, like the Occupy Wall Street folk seemed to think that because he wants it a certain way, then all others should submit to his "superior" ideas.

My personal thought is that this is the end result of a spoiled life that was not taught right from wrong, or respect for others. He broke the law, stole other peoples property and could not accept that he was not the supreme abitter in this situation.

The game wasn't being played by his rules so he took his ball and went home. The ultimate act of a selfish individual.

As part of a society, I either have to work within that societies means for change of be prepared to deal with the results of my refusal to conform.

Its sad to see how this case is getting whitewashed.

The documents he "stole" are in the public domain. His only issues were with MIT (unauthorized access to a janitor's closet), and JSTOR (potential TOS violation, which they admitted did not exist). The feds should not have been involved at all. He shouldn't have been facing 35 years for computer fraud and hacking charges, for making an automated script that simply downloaded freely available files. He broke no encryption, used no exploits, had legitimate access, and did not distribute anything that was not in the public domain. The script simply went to the website and issued a download request, the same as a person would. This is yet another case of a government prosecutor trying to make a name for themselves by saving us from the evil "hackers".

Both JSTOR and MIT dropped their charges. Both of them realized that their TOS agreements failed to protect them from this type of case. The government continued their attack in an attempt to make an example of him.

The newsmedia trying to paint him as some spoiled brat anti-government type makes me sick.

No it is not. The authors were payed by your tax dollar, therefore you have a right to see them.

They got no extra payment for writing the stuff, they would have got payed the same if they never produced any papers.Then this "publishing house" grabs the "rights" to the contents and do not pay the authors.If any theft has taken place it is by the publishers.

It is a totally different situation to someone distributing another persons music which I am dead against.

Be fair Grumpy_Mike, they did index them and setup a database for full text searches. However, it doesn't give them exclusive rights to the documents themselves since they are public, and that is what Swartz downloaded. He didn't use their search to find them, he searched the old fashioned way.

He did nothing illegal in my opinion, and the plaintiffs withdrew complaints after they had looked into it.

That's why things like this should be decided by a court, not by you, or me, or Mr. Swartz.

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and the plaintiffs withdrew complaints after they had looked into it.

The fact that the plaintiffs withdrew their complaints shouldn't be sufficient to prove one's innocence. Lots of domestic abuse cases should be sufficient in convincing anyone of that.

Regarding courts, they cost a LOT of money. Prosecutors often ruin people and their entire extended family losing a case by simply running up the costs. The power of a prosecutor's office is incredible and has extremely deep pockets. When no one was hurt and the plaintiffs have removed their complaint, leave it the heck alone

dhenry, your second sentence should tell a whole lot of people how you think. Coffin v. United States way back in the late 19th century set the stage in the U.S. and it has been reinforced thousands of times. It's even explicitly stated in many country's constitutions.

When no one was hurt and the plaintiffs have removed their complaint, leave it the heck alone

Then it is upon Mr. Schwartz and his defense to prove that no one was hurt.

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dhenry, your second sentence should tell a whole lot of people how you think. Coffin v. United States way back in the late 19th century set the stage in the U.S. and it has been reinforced thousands of times. It's even explicitly stated in many country's constitutions.

I am not really sure how Coffin vs. US is connected to your notion that the plaintiffs' dropping the complaints proved one's innocence.

I actually agree with your statement that if no one is hurt, we should leave it alone.

But to satisfy that condition (or assumption) that no one is hurt, Schwartz and his team will have to prove that no one is hurt. If he cannot, he will have to go to the court and let his peers judge his innocence (or lack of).

That, in case you didn't realize, has no thing to do with presumption of innocence.